Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1887-01-05

The bedroom where Percival had slept from
boyhood waS in that house. The books he
had read were on the shelves Here he used
to sit at dinner. There was the garden walk
where he was wont 10 saunter with his pipe.
She knew Ate very peg where his hat used to
Som how he did not seem quite 50 far
f35fsAS Whsa was in the rrecincts Of his
lE;SEn h{a IA the rectors dispirited talk
11ii a Seliness for her, because he
3 iIllsi
would geS d glimpse at het ahsent lad him
5seik For instance one day, as they were
s5walk kiag together to the garden gate the
rector safd - = .
aPercy planted that rose.n
Next week, as they went the sarle way,
Sophia stopped beside the rose tree to pluck
off few withered leaves and make the plant
look trim. Mr.. Brent, stopping with her,
said in his distracted way: -.
II never told you; Percival planted tat
rose"
He never told heri Why, by that time she
knew how many leaves were on 1t, and could
spell its name and knew its prospect Of life,
having become for Percival's sake q perfect
horticultural actuary.
Then another day the rector, said listlessly
-:fer he never joked with her about his son,
and indeed seemed to have only faint re-
membrance OF that connection:
Il heard from Percy this morning; would
you care to bear his letter.
Sophia, who would have lived on bread and
water fof a week rather than miss one line
her darling wrote, said, trying with miserable
affectstion TO initiate the rector's apathetic
- r. e. %
sYes,-if it isnot troubling you"
perhaps Mr.. Brent said aas you don't
seem greatly to care for it, we need not read
this one, but wait forsthe next
He said this quite innocently, but he put
Sophin in; dreadful fix. With the instinct
of true generalsbip however, she resolved to
recover her lost position by q bold stroke.
II would not miss hearing it for the world,
she said audaciously. 70, do read it!n
And the rector, looking up with faint
smile, like man who remembers something,
took the letter out and read it through.
Innone Of, these letters did Percy mention
her name, until three years after his depart
ure, when one day the rector read this line:
IF yott euer see the girl .cho 1Cas once 1'iy
little Sophia, gfue her my loue. !"
He read it mechanically, as he did every
thing now; then, holding the letter with
loose fngers it slipped from, hiin and
SKINNED downunder the table, and presently
he was called from the room Sophia dropped
on her knees and caught the sheet up, and
read the line again:
4lf you eyer see the girl toho ,ras once my
little Sophia giue her nyi !"
Bless me, how she kissed that sheet 1t got
all the love kisses that had been ripening on
her lips for six and thirty months. Had It
been the age of Transformation, that sheet
would surely have turned into lover under
the transmitting power Of those kisses. And
then Miss Sophia, who had a terribly tender
conscience of her own, looked at the letter,
and colored up at certain suggestion OF her
own mind, and wondered would it be very
wrpng. ard wouhi the rector ever find it OUT
and was livery mean Of her to do 1t in the
hope that he would never find it out2 And,
deciding ON action, she nicely tore off the
finest little morsel Of the paper, where on the
last line these precious words were inscribed;
and she slipped the shred into her watch case,
where she could look at it night and morning.
The title girl that toas my Sophia. "That
Is! that shall bel until you bid her cease!" she
aid tnousand times, as if that morsel OF
paper were his living spokesman. Truly, the
girl was very much in love, and absence
made her heart grow fonder, which is not
usual with either male or female hearts, un-
less see the world wrongly altogether.
About this time Sophia-and not Sophia
only, but all of us-began to notice that Mr..
Brent looked paler than usual, walked with
slight drag of the right foot, and sometimes
missed word out of a sentence without
being aware of it. Again, he would observe
the mistake, and correct it with an appear
ance.-of irritation. "Brain mischief going
on,g old Sparker whispered. And he was
right; for one Sunday evening, after preach-
ing, the rector suddenly became speechless in
the vestry,~and lost his power of motion.
lie never spoke syllable again; and even
when he opened his eyes there was no reason
In them. A dreadful Storm Of wind and rain
came on that night, and blew the golden cock
from off the church steeple, and some of the
masonry with it. The tempest ragged round
the rectory garden, and uprooted two great
elm trees, and cast them across the lawn in
gigantic ruin. Meanwhile the rector lay as
quiet as if summer breeze was blowing.
There was no storm that could roar loud
enough to disturb his sleep. And in the
morninr, when we awoke to see what the
wind had done in our gardens and parks, we
heard our .kind-hearted little rector had de-
parted from us forever, just while the storm
was uttering its fiercest blast
We said that we could have better spared
better man, looked grave a moment, re-
marked how uncertain life is, and then
talked of the storm, and forgot the rector.
But to Sophia his death was terrible sor-
row. Somehow Percival seemed gone: she
would hear no more about him, nor have the
remote but still very actual comfort OF talk
ing with his father and seeing his old haunts.
She had borne trials already, and other trials
awaited her; but this was, after all, one OF
the ,sorest she ever felt. She grew lonely,
sad, doubling; began to think Percy would
forget her: tried valiantly to battle with her
fears: cried many hours when she was alone,
then wired her eyes and went downstairs
smilinely: but it was an-acAingu heart that
beat in her breast And the body OF the rec
tor was laid to sleep in the churchyard, and
his successor came. The king was dead, and
the cry was. Long live the hngo for we
were all pleased with oHr new iparson. he
preached sermons shorter by i've minutes
than those of Mi. Brent. Heheft tMS curates,
cood-looking bachelpra H;e worked the
rarish well: So We cpnfesssds every one that
the less Of poor. Brent was gain to us;
es sn,cially these, last few years, we said, when
t,mble oyercame him. and tiis brain mis-
chief had been steaithily making its way
nearer TO his vital patt. VERY soon the old
rector's name was forgotten; hpt day by day
and week by week we noticed that oyer the
crave where his mortSf part nay fresh flow
ers were strewn by some tender and unfor-
getting hand
Chapter Y.
THE LIVES OF OUR CHARACTERS ADVANCE
Five years had passed away since Sopnia
Il